Why Fewer People Should Have Easy Access to Guns...

Call the regular police, or the fashion / good taste police?
Seriously -- clearly this is just one more instance where shooting made sense as a legitimate action to the shooter, but was wrong wrong wrong and of course, not safe.

"It's a bird, it's a plane.......it's a woman with a red mohawk?"

Man sentenced after accidentally shooting woman's mohawk he mistook for bird

Published March 30, 2012

FoxNews.com

A Colorado man was sentenced to five years' probation after accidentally shooting a woman whose red mohawk he mistook for a fowl that had been harassing his cats.
Derrill Rockwell, 49, told police that he grabbed his .22-caliber rifle and set out from his home Oct. 5 to fire at the bird after spotting it at the top of a hill about 90 feet away, the Daily Sentinel reported Friday.
"His intent was to spook it away," Deputy District Attorney Jason Conley told District Judge Richard Gurley on Friday, according to the newspaper.
But after shooting at the bird, the man said he noticed it didn't fly away and he reported hearing a woman moaning in pain.
Rockwell soon discovered that he had shot a 23-year-old woman in the head, mistaking her red mohawk for the menacing bird.
Conley reportedly told the judge that the woman may have passed out from alcohol before being shot. Police officers also found a bag of suspected methamphetamine near where she was shot.
The woman survived the shooting, but has since moved from Colorado and could not be reached by the newspaper Friday.
Rockwell was sentenced to serve five years probation after pleading guilty to felony possession of a weapon by a prior offender, the newspaper reported.
"In 15 years in law enforcement, this was one of the more interesting cases I’ve worked," Grand Junction Police Department detective Sean Crocker told the judge, according to the newspaper.
Click for more on this story from the Daily Sentinel

Accidental Shooting by Off-duty Policeman - His Son is Dead

local news reports

Retired Rochester Police Captain and current Perry Police Officer Michael Leach and his son Matthew, 37, were sharing room six of the Clark's Beach Motel Friday night on a group trip to Old Forge.

"We have a group of police officers that come every couple of years and they come on their motorcycles. They're some sort of a police motorcycle club," explained Clark's Beach Motel Owner Dan Rivet.

Rivet, also a paramedic, responded to an emergency call at 12:51 a.m. Saturday at his motel.

"The son went in the room, the father was sleeping in the bed. And for some reason, whether he had a flashback or whatever, he pulled his service gun and he shot his son in the back," he said.

State Police say Michael may have thought his son was an intruder. Rivet says they rushed Matthew to Saint Elizabeth's in Utica, but there was little they could do.

The thought-he-was-an-intruder explanation begs the question of whether it's legitimate to shoot intruders in the back. In any case, we can conclude that this is another unfit gun owner who happened to be a cop.

Better ongoing screening is the answer.  What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The "Dancing in the Blood" Accusation

via Philly.com

First, the gun lobby goes straight to the exploitation argument — which is, of course, a big lie. We never allow an assertion of this kind to stop conversation about other issues.

Nobody who points to inadequate flood-control policies is accused of "exploiting" the victims of a deluge. Nobody who criticizes a botched response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is accused of "exploiting" the victims of a hurricane or tornado.

No, it's only where a gun massacre is concerned that a gag rule is imposed on any thinking beyond the immediate circumstances of the catastrophe. God forbid we question a tenet of the theology of firearms.

On The Truth About Guns, no opportunity is ever missed.

What's your opinion? Does the Philly.com article make a good point? Is this response on the part of the gun rights activist an indication of their failed position?

Please lease leave a comment.

I wish I had run this last Friday, but better a little late than not at all

This Is How The Colorado Shooter Was Armed -- And Sadly It Was All Legal

This is a cross-post with the New Trajectory blog, HERE.

When you picture someone who is dressed and armed for self-defense and conceal carry, what do you picture?  I picture someone dressed normal, except for a handgun strapped under their jacket or in a holster at their waist or in their purse.

When you picture someone who is dressed and armed for hunting, what do you picture?  I picture someone in rugged outdoor clothes, a hunter-red vest and hat, and a long rifle.

From the Denver Post online.

When you see the picture to the right, does this fit either of those images?

To the gun lobby, this picture is an image of "freedom" and self-defense.

James Eagon Holmes, the young man who opened fire on a crowded theater of men, women, and children, who killed 12, wounded another 58, and terrorized hundreds, and who set booby trap bombsall over his apartment, was dressed and armed like this, according to an article in the Denver Post today.

From the article (I've added bolding):

He also came dressed for battle, wearing a gas mask, a combat helmet, a ballistic vest and armor protecting his legs, throat and groin.

Law enforcement officials said Friday that they are investigating whether James Eagan Holmes, the 24-year-old suspect, was legally eligible to own all those weapons and combat gear. But they had found no evidence of a criminal history that would have prohibited him from buying the weapons used to massacre moviegoers at a midnight Batman premiere in Aurora.

His only run-in with police: an October 2011 speeding ticket.

Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates said Holmes brought a pair of .40-caliber Glock pistols, an AR-15 military-style rifle and a Remington shotgun to the Century Aurora 16 complex, but it was unclear whether he used them all as he strode through the theater, shooting people apparently at random. One Glock pistol was found in his white Hyundai when police arrested him outside the car, he said. Oates said Holmes purchased 6,000 rounds of ammunition and multiple magazines, including a drum magazine able to hold 100 cartridges, from stores and on the Internet.

Oates also said investigators have not yet determined how many shots were fired or how many gun magazines were brought to the theater to carry out the midnight massacre.

But "many, many rounds were fired," he said.

According to one law enforcement source, the gunman could easily have shot police officers as they approached because of all his combat gear but sat calmly by his car instead.

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic version of the military M-16 rifle, first marketed for civilian sales in 1963.

Glock, an Austrian gunmaker, has become the leading seller of semi-automatic pistols to U.S. law enforcement agencies and offers a variety of .40-caliber pistols to civilians as well.

The Remington Model 870 is a U.S.-made pump-action shotgun used by the public for sport shooting and hunting and is often carried by law enforcement and military personnel.

Holmes purchased all of his weapons legally, passing background checks, and purchased the thousands of rounds of ammo online.

What do you think of when you see that image?  I think of military special forces or SWAT teams.  Yet everything he wore or was armed with was completely legal to purchase and possess in America.  In some places, such as Arizona, where unlicensed "open carry" is allowed, you can walk down the street dressed and armed this way, and there's not a thing the police can do to stop you.

Is this the cost of our "freedoms," as the NRA defines them?

It's time to put a limit on what dangerous people are able to buy in the United States.  It's time to re-instate the Assault Weapons Ban, prohibit high-capacity ammo clips, and better regulate large sales of ammunition and weaponry.

Aurora, Colorado Shooting - Update 4

Here is the latest press conference:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And here from MSNBC.com is the latest article expanding on that update: By Miranda Leitsinger and Miguel Llanos, NBC News AURORA, Colo. -- The booby-trapped apartment of mass shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes was "designed to kill," officials said Saturday as they described a complex operation to disarm sophisticated explosives without destroying evidence. "This was certainly challenging," said FBI agent Jim Yacone, detailingthe discovery of the explosive devices and the use of a robot to disarm a trip wire and a primary bomb. "The threat has not been completely eliminated," Yacone said, while adding that enough progress had been made that "an extensive amount of evidence is in the process of being collected." Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters that he believed the rigged apartment targeted the police. “We sure as hell are angry,” he said. "This apartment was designed to kill whoever entered it," he said. "Make no mistake about it." Holmes had received a "high volume of deliveries" over the last four months at home and at work, which would explain how he obtained thousands of rounds of ammunition, Oates said. He said it could take another day to fully dismantle explosives in the apartment and collect evidence, adding that residents of four neighboring buildings could be allowed to return Saturday night. Residents of the building where Holmes lived might be allowed back on Sunday, he said. Specialists earlier Saturday set off a small, controlled detonation inside the apartment after first disarming a trip wire and incendiary device.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters that he believed the rigged apartment targeted the police. “We sure as hell are angry,” he said. "This apartment was designed to kill whoever entered it," he said. "Make no mistake about it." Holmes had received a "high volume of deliveries" over the last four months at home and at work, which would explain how he obtained thousands of rounds of ammunition, Oates said. The blast succeeded in disarming a second triggering device, Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told reporters. A siren and shouts of "Fire in the hole" preceded the blast. Live video showed the blast blowing out part of a window, but no smoke or fire resulted. "The controlled detonation was successful," the Aurora Police Department said in a statement. "Still more work to be done in the apartment to include dealing with other devices. There is a possibility of more controlled detonations." The 800-square-foot apartment appears to have three types of explosives, a law enforcement source told the Associated Press: jars with accelerants; chemicals that would explode when mixed together; and more than 30 "improvised grenades" that resemble commercially available aerial fireworks shells

Homeopathic A&E from that Mitchell & Webb Look

A & E=Accident & Emergency aka Casualty, British Terms for Emergency Room: